How to take screenshot on Windows Phone

This article explains how to install a screen capture application on Windows Phones.

Introduction

Windows Phone 8

With Windows Phone 8 devices you can take screenshots by simply pressing the power and the Windows button simultaneously. This works whether your phone is unlocked or not. Screenshot will be saved automatically and can found in Picture hub – Screenshot Picture Album.

Windows Phone 7.5

Windows Phone 7.5 doesn’t have inbuilt support for screen capture. However if you have a phone that is (a) developer unlocked and (b) interop-unlocked there’s an app you can use for taking screen shots on your device. The app is called Screen Capturer – the rest of the article explains how to use this tool.

How to unlock Windows Phone

To unlock WP device for development, please refer the steps written on MSDN link below. How to: Register Your Phone for Development

How to install on unlocked device

You can install the app only if your Windows Phone is unlocked (a developer device). You can download Screen Capture app from: ScreenCapturer.xap

Step

1. Click “Start Capture Task” to start capturing (A timer will start, and during this period, application will listen to Camera button event)
2. You may need to wait one or several seconds, a message prompt would convey – to start capturing.
3. Navigate to any application, and touch Camera button to capture the screen
4. A message prompt would confirm if capturing was successful, you can capture 20 images at a time (yes, you can ask for more if you want)
5. When the Capture Task ends, a Toast will show up to let you save the captured image, tap the Toast to return to application
6. The thumbnail will list and the captured images will stored in Pictures Hub
7. Tap the thumbnail will delete the temporary image file in the application folder

Settings Help

• Prevent Capture Task auto run: Capture Task uses BackgroundAgent to run and wait for Camera button event, BackgroundAgent may auto run in some case, enable this option to stop auto capture.
• The Capture Task duration: How long will the Capture Task run before it stop to accept Camera button event.

Notice

• Game and movie is not supported in this version.
• The Capture Task only save temporary file, you need go back to application to trigger saving file to Pictures Hub.

Download

You can download ScreenCapture application from here. ScreenCapturer.xap
Here is QR code for download this app.